December 12, 2024 • 27 mins
What happens when a beloved book makes its way to the big screen? Join me on an exploration of "White Bird in a Blizzard" by Laura Kasischke and its cinematic adaptation directed by Greg Araki, starring Shailene Woodley. This episode invites you to uncover the mysterious disappearance of Kat's mother and the ripple effects it creates in both the book and the film. Just how do the differences in portrayal affect the story's impact, and what daring choices were made in adapting the 1980s setting and complex family dynamics?
We'll delve into the shifting relationships and buried secrets that propel the story forward. Kat's evolving connection with her boyfriend Phil, alongside a dark suspicion about her father's role in her mother's vanishing, weaves a tense narrative. Hear about the perplexing differences between mediums, such as the disturbing affair between Kat and a detective written into the book, and how the film chooses to handle adult-minor relationships. These narrative choices shape Kat's journey through a web of unanswered questions and emotional turmoil.
Concluding with a look at exceptional performances, I shine a spotlight on Shailene Woodley's portrayal of Kat, capturing her transformation with remarkable depth. Eva Green and Christopher Meloni also deliver standout performances, adding authenticity and complexity to their roles as Kat's parents. The film, with its cohesive storytelling and emotional resonance, offers a compelling experience, making it a must-watch. I encourage you to immerse yourself in this fascinating adaptation and share your thoughts by supporting the podcast with ratings and reviews.
All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set
out to answer the age-oldquestion is the book really
always better than the movie?
I'm Yuvia, an actress and booklover based out of New York City
, and today I will be talkingabout White Bird in a Blizzard
by Laura Kaczynski and it's 2014adaptation, white Bird in a
(00:21):
Blizzard, starring ShaileneWoodley, ava Green and directed
by Greg Araki.
Hello everyone.
So, yes, as you can see, Ilooked up how to pronounce this
author's last name and it wastotally not what I expected,
because it is spelled the way Itried pronouncing it last week.
It's spelled like it looks likeit should be pronounced
(00:43):
Kishishk or something like that,but it's actually Kiziski.
So there you go, all right, soWhite Bird in a Blizzard by
Laura Kiziski was firstpublished in 1999.
Now, I didn't realize this bookwas that old.
I had heard about the film.
I had actually been curiousabout it when it initially came
(01:05):
out.
I think 2014 was the year inwhich there was like a lot of
movies that were getting a lotof hype and I was determined to
see all of them, but at the timeI was still in El Paso and,
since a lot of them were indiefilms.
We don't get a lot of smallerindie films released in El Paso.
You need to be in New York orLA or some select markets, I'm
(01:28):
sure, like Austin and Dallas inTexas would probably get them,
but El Paso, no, we're not goingto get it.
So I never saw the film, but Ihad heard about it and I was
intrigued by the concept and didwant to check it out.
And so when I saw that it wason Amazon, I finally watched it.
And that's when I found outthat it was based on a book.
(01:50):
And yeah, I did not realizethis book was that old.
But moving on, white Bird in aBlizzard by Laura Koziski was
first published in 1999.
And it follows the story ofKatrina Connors.
Her mother disappears.
It's assumed that she haswalked out on the family.
She's absolutely miserable inher marriage and it's obvious
(02:12):
that being a stay-at-home mother, a homemaker, all of that was
not what she actually wanted.
So the year that Katrina turnsKatrina or Kat turns 16, her
mother disappears, kat and herfather start to gather the
pieces of their lives andKatrina doesn't seem all that
bothered by her mother's absence.
(02:33):
That is until she starts havingdreams of her mother.
That's when she realizes thatshe has to discover what these
dreams mean so that she cansleep peacefully again.
And that is when she discoverssomething unexpected.
The 2014 adaptation of WhiteBird in a Blizzard is written
and directed by Greg Araki.
(02:54):
It stars Shailene Woodley asKat, ava Green as her mother and
Christopher Maloney as herfather, and it follows the life
of a teen girl whose world isturned upside down after her
mother disappears.
So this film slash book, dotake place in the 80s.
It actually takes place in 1988.
(03:14):
Shout out to my brother andOrlando, because they're 88
babies, but yes's, that's whenit came out and I mean, it seems
like a pretty straightforwardadaptation, but it's not or it
is, I don't know.
We'll get into it.
So, yeah, I was intrigued bythis film, or the the movie
(03:38):
trailer, when this came out, butit was just never released in
my hometown, so I never saw itand I kind of forgot about it.
And then it popped up on one ofthe streaming services and I
was like, oh yeah, I did want towatch that, so I did, but let's
go ahead and get started.
So the first thing that I wantto say is that bothered me about
(03:59):
Shailene Woodley's casting isthat Kat is fat.
The character of Kat issupposed to be fat, at least
while her mom is around.
So Kat and her mother kind ofhave this contentious
relationship.
They don't really, they justfight a lot.
(04:20):
And it's obvious that Kat isn'tmeeting her mother's
expectations in a lot of waysand one of the more egregious
ones in Kat's mother's eyes isher weight.
Kat is fat and her motherbelieves in being thin and
beautiful and feminine and youcan't be that if you're fat.
(04:42):
In Kat's mom's eyes so she isfat.
Now this book and film are likeswitch back and forth between
Kat in the future and Kat in thepast, like as in Kat before her
mom disappears and Kat afterher mom disappears.
So we do kind of jump back andforth between those timelines.
(05:04):
So Kat before her motherdisappears is fat and Kat after
her mother disappears is skinny.
And I think it's just one ofthose things that like now that
her mom is off of her bag andshe can breathe a little bit and
relax, she doesn't feel thatpressure of needing to be
perfect.
I guess that's what makes iteasy for her to lose that weight
(05:26):
.
So it did take a while in thebook for us to get to this
weight loss moment and then,once she loses that weight, she
remains with that weight lossfor the rest of the book.
But so for the first half ofthe book, kat is fat, and so it
definitely bothered me thatShailene Woodley is definitely
(05:49):
not fat.
She is very thin and shedefinitely has more of the
standard Hollywood bodyexpectation.
That being said, kat does loseweight and we need to see this
transformation in on screen in,especially since it is told in a
lot of flashbacks.
This would need to be done in away that would more than likely
(06:14):
be reliant on a fat suit, whichI don't necessarily condone.
So it is a little bit trickybecause Kat's weight is a very
important aspect of therelationship she has with her
mother, so that weight isimportant.
But fat suits are veryoffensive and most of the time
(06:35):
look comical, not realistic.
So I don't know, would it havebeen better to just cast a fat
actress and just have her, haveKat, be fat throughout the whole
film?
Or is it just better to do whatthe film did and cast Shailene
Woodley and not have weight be afactor at all in the character?
(06:59):
I don't know.
It's definitely tricky.
Like I said, the films are shotout of order.
There would be no way.
I mean, I guess they could havelike paused, they could have
pulled a Mark Ruffalo in I Knowthis Much Is True in which they
shot all the scenes of him asthe more fit twin and then took
(07:19):
a six-week break before goingback and filming all the scenes
of him after having packed onsix weeks worth of weight.
So maybe they could have donesomething like that, like film
all the scenes where Kat has theweight loss and then taking a
break to give the actress anopportunity to gain weight.
I don't know, I kind of or itcould have been reversed have
(07:41):
assist a bigger actress inlosing weight.
I understand why they didn't dothat.
I think it requiring there werejust would not have been any
way to get the bigger actressdown to a more noticeable size
safely without like crashdieting or anything like that.
We all know it's a lot easier toput on the weight than take it
(08:02):
off.
So I don't know it is a trickyone, but I kind of wish.
I kind of do wish they had gonewith a different actress rather
than Shailene would, becausethe weight does play such an
important factor in the way thatKat's mom talks to her and
treats her and yeah, I think Ikind of wish they had gone.
It's so easy to just cast aconventionally attractive
(08:25):
actress and make some sort ofthe knot essentially.
But anyway, that was.
I don't really have a solutionfor that because I know it might
be difficult, but yeah, I if Ikind of wish they had gone for a
fat actress, just to have thatperspective, because it is an
important perspective.
But anyway, one of the otherchanges that I'm not exactly
(08:49):
sure why it was me, but I'm notnecessarily complaining is so
Kat has two friends.
One of them is Mickey and inthe book Mickey is a girl.
She is a cheerleader, verybeautiful, conventionally
attractive cheerleader.
In the film they made Mickey aboy.
They cast Mark Andelicato asMickey and apparently this was
(09:14):
Greg Rocky's first choice toplay Mickey.
So I guess he just reallywanted to work with Mark and
switch gender, swap the roles.
That change didn't reallybother me.
Mickey and the other friendthat I can't remember, but in
the film she's played byGabrielle Sabidi, which I love
her, but they're not importantto the story.
You easily could have cut themout of both and you would have
(09:37):
probably gotten with the sameconclusion.
So, yeah, they're not reallyimportant to the story.
So that change definitelydidn't bother me.
It was more of just like oh,mickey's supposed to be a girl,
cool, all right.
So in the film there is amoment and this is after Kat,
after Kat's mom has been gonefor about three years, I want to
(10:00):
say and Kat is home fromcollege and she and Mickey and
the other friend which is reallybugging me that I can't
remember her name.
Let me look up her name reallyquick.
So she's not just some namelessperson Beth.
Okay.
So Beth and Mickey are the twofriends.
So Beth, mickey and Kat are allhome from college.
(10:20):
I want to say it's like theholiday break or spring break or
Thanksgiving break it'sdefinitely not the summer break,
it's one of the shorter breaksand they're all in town and
they're all hanging out in Kat'sbasement.
That's like their go-to hangoutspot and they're all hanging
out and then at one pointthey're drinking champagne and
they're like, oh, this champagnekind of sucks, let me chill it
(10:43):
for a bit.
And there's a freezer in thebasement that hasn't been used
pretty much since Kat's mom diedbecause Kat's mom was the only
one that did the cooking.
So in the years since Kat's momdied, because Kat's mom was the
only one that did the cooking.
So in the years since Kat'smom's disappearance it's kind of
just become a catch-all, it'sjust become an extra counter
space.
So it's one of those like thosemeat locker kind of freezers, I
(11:05):
guess you could say, like thehorizontal ones, not the ones
that stand upright.
So, yeah, she and her friendsgo over and they start like
removing the newspapers thathave collected on top of this
freezer so they can try to chillthe champagne.
And as they're doing that,kat's father shows up and is
like you need to go home now andhe kicks Mickey and Beth out.
(11:27):
And then he gets this, causesKat and him to get into a fight
and she's like I can't believeyou did that, like that was so
embarrassing, and also they'remy friends.
And he's like well, you guysare underage drinking.
And she's like that neverbothered you before.
And so it becomes this wholething In the book.
He kind of just decides to kickthem out because the pretense
is they're underage drinking,but there isn't really anything
(11:50):
else that triggers it.
Yeah, it's kind of just likeyou need to leave now.
And that's it In the film aswell.
So in the book Kat's boyfriend,phil, so they were they're kind
of still dating by the time Katheads off to college.
But it's definitely more casual.
They were a lot more seriouswhen they were in high school
(12:12):
and then he stayed behind andshe went to college.
So it's definitely become a lotmore casual.
They were a lot more seriouswhen they were in high school
and then he stayed behind andshe went to college.
So it's definitely become a lotmore casual.
And there reaches a point inwhich they stop sleeping
together.
Like when they first starteddating they couldn't keep their
hands off each other kind ofsituation.
And then as time went on, likethey kind of just stopped.
And so at one point Kat is likeconfronts him about like at one
(12:34):
point they're just talking andKat questions him like if he had
anything to do with her mom'sdisappearance and he's like no,
but your dad definitely does.
And she's like what do you mean?
And he's like that's all I'mgonna say.
And then that's the last timethey talk to each other and and
then in the book it kind of juststays like that.
Like the words, phil's words,bother her, but she doesn't do
(12:56):
anything about it.
Well, she does and we'll getinto what she does.
But in the film there's a littlebit more after that.
So after she has thatconversation with Phil, she goes
to her, she starts having thismoment in which she's she starts
freaking out and again sheheads down to the freezer and
her dad's like what are youdoing?
And she's like I don't know, Ijust do you know what happened
(13:17):
to my mom?
And he's like no, and then shesays you would tell me.
Right, like if you, if you knewwhat happened to her, you would
tell me.
And he says yes, of course.
And so she confronts him aboutwhat Phil says in the film.
In the book she doesn't.
She takes matters into her ownhands in the book.
In the film she has thisconfrontation with her father
(13:38):
and then she sets out, she getson a plane to go back to college
and flies away without everfinding out what happened to her
mom.
And in the book she does findout what happened to her mom.
I guess let me rephrase thatshe leaves back to college
without knowing where her mom is.
In the book she discovers whereher mom is, but in the film she
ends up.
So the film is one of thoselike strongly narrated films,
(14:02):
like we get a lot of voiceoverfrom Kat explaining what
happened, what's going on, andso she ends up.
We get images of her on theflight home as she's crying, and
then we're getting into likethe official spoiler territory.
Now I think you can probablyguess what happens if you
haven't guessed it by now.
But if you haven't guessed itright now, this is we are
(14:24):
officially in spoiler territory.
So if you do not want to knowwhat happens to Kat, what
happened to Kat's mom, all ofthat, then now is the time to
turn back.
So we get images of as she'snarrating this.
We get images of Kat flying backto college and then we get
images.
We see a shot of her dadgetting arrested and she tells
(14:48):
us an image of her mom in thefreezer.
And she tells us an image ofher mom in the freezer.
And what happened was, afterthe two close calls, essentially
with the freezer, with Kat andher friends, and then Kat, right
before she confronts her father, he realizes it's like it's no
longer safe to keep the bodyhere.
So he takes the body, but atthis point the body had been in
(15:10):
the freezer for so long that bythe time he took it out to bury
it, she just melted.
Like she had been frozen for solong that she just melted.
Like there was no evidence ofhow he killed her.
I think there's like remnants.
It's not like she there's.
They find like evidence of thebody and the police arrest him
and he confesses and says thathe's the one that killed her.
But there's no like like hadthey not found whatever stuff
(15:32):
can't be melted, or I'm notexactly sure how that works, but
essentially like she had beenfrozen for so long that majority
of her melts.
And so they arrest him and heends up killing himself while in
custody.
And yeah, so cat finds out allof this after the fact in the
book.
So Phil tells her like your daddefinitely knows what happened
(15:54):
to your mom, and she's like whatdo you mean?
And he's like that's all I'mgoing to say.
And she's been having thesedreams of her mom in a blizzard
and that leads her to go to thebasement and open up the freezer
and she, she finds her, hermom's body.
And that's how the book endsLike she finds her mom.
The last sentence is like Ifound my mom.
That's a very.
Before I reveal what themotivation was.
(16:15):
Let me just talk a little bitabout different aspects of both
(16:39):
that I liked, because whathappens to the motivation is
tied to one of the things that Idid appreciate about the film.
So in the book, after she andPhil stop having sex, she falls
for this like for the detectivethat's like the lead detective
(17:01):
on the mother's on the case tofind out what happened to her
mother and she.
They start having an affair andI will say I think I
appreciated the portrayal alittle bit better in the book
because it does make you feel alot more uncomfortable.
I don't.
One of the things that really,really irks me and it's been
(17:22):
such a trope like this was likethe go-to trope of the 2010s was
like student-teacherrelationships and really, really
glorifying that and making itseem like it's okay, when
obviously no, it's not, whilethis is not a student-teacher
relationship sexual relationshipit is a sexual relationship
(17:43):
between an adult and a minor andthe adult is also a cop.
So I will say I think the filmglorified it a little bit more
than the book did.
The book like yeah, and not thatit was saying like necessarily
that it was okay or anything,but like the after she has sex
with the detective and she tellsher friends about it.
(18:04):
They start talking about likeoh, who's better in bed?
Like is it the detective or isit phil?
And yeah, and in the book likethey do have these conversations
, but it's I'm trying todescribe how like the way it's
written definitely makes youfeel a little bit more like ooh,
but he's an adult and I thinkit's especially like more gross
(18:25):
because like the detective'spillow talk is really like it's
really gross pillow talk interms of like, oh, you're into
her body because it's the bodyof a child as opposed to like
the body of a woman, that kindof pillow talk, if that makes
any sense.
Yeah, and like the filmdefinitely makes it seem more, a
lot more normalized.
(18:46):
I'm not saying it makes it seemromantic or ideal necessarily,
but it does feel a lot morenormalized than the book.
Like the book definitely mademe be a little bit more like oh,
that's gross.
Why would you say that to achild?
That kind of thing I didn'tnecessarily like that.
The film kind of normalized ita little bit more.
(19:06):
The other thing that just reallythat I really didn't like about
the, about the book, was theway it was written.
It was just very like there wasjust so much description, but
like it was overly flowery and,yeah, it just I couldn't tell
(19:28):
reading it if I was enjoyingwhat I was reading or not.
I was intrigued by the concept,but I yeah, I didn't
necessarily, I couldn't fullyget into it.
There wasn't anythingnecessarily that was drawing me
in.
The thing that I really likedthat the film did was kind of
give us that closure in terms ofwhat caused that, what
(19:49):
motivated her father to kill hermother, and the reason is that
so, like I've said many times,kat and Phil reach a point in
which they stop having sex witheach other and it's kind of
implied that there could besomething going on between Phil
and her mother.
She just gets very flirty andshe finds ways like she'll wear
(20:13):
outfits that are a little shortor things like that, and ask
Phil his opinion on them, butwe're never explicitly told why
they stop having sex with eachother.
It kind of just happens and inthe film they stop having sex
with each other and you'rereally in the film, you're
really really led to believethat that's the reason why they
stopped having sex with eachother because Chad's mom and
(20:35):
Phil started having an affair.
But plot twist in the film,like I said, the book it just
ends with her finding the bodyand we never get that closure of
.
But why?
Why did the dad kill the mom?
And, mind you, it is saidfrequently that it was obvious
that she wasn't happy she foundways to.
(20:59):
She was constantly bringing Katdown, she was constantly
insulting her husband.
Like this lady was not likablein any shape or form.
I didn't like this character atall and I kind of felt very
apathetic towards herdisappearance, which is the way
that that Kat felt, at least inthe book.
Like Kat is kind of just like,yeah, she's gone.
(21:19):
So it's kind of like like Katseems much happier and not at
all concerned about whathappened to her mother, because
now she does wonder.
But it's definitely like itseems like her life is better
now that her mother is gone forsure, which I'm just like.
I don't blame you, that lady'sawful, but I'm not necessarily
(21:40):
sure that that was the author'sintention.
Like, was I supposed to befeeling that way about?
Should I have been?
I don't know.
I felt a lot more along thelines of how Kat felt in the
book towards her mother, likeshe's fine, good, I mean she's
gone, good.
But yeah, in the film ShaileneWoodley definitely adds a layer
of like.
(22:00):
She seems kind of apathetictowards her mother's
disappearance and it's like kindof blase, like it's not a big
deal, it's fine, whatever.
Like she was, she wasn't happy,she's probably like she left on
her own it's fine.
And then the more she has thesedreams and the more as time
passes, the more it startsgetting to her that she doesn't
(22:21):
know what happened to her mother.
And so when she confronts herfather, it's a very like sad,
kind of like begging, pleading,crying, please, like you would
tell me if you know where she is, please, like you would right,
like just if you know anything,just tell me please, kind of
situation which I'm not surethat the mom is any more likable
in the film.
If I'm being honest, I can seeShailene Woodley did add that
(22:44):
kind of layer to it, which whichI really liked.
But anyway, back to themotivation.
So yeah, we never get themotivation in the book, other
than maybe he just got tired ofher constant put downs and
insults and things like that.
We don't know, we don't know.
But we do get the motivation inthe film and the motivation is
that Kat's mom comes home fromshopping one day and she enters
(23:07):
her bedroom to discover Phil andher husband in bed together.
And Phil runs out of the roomembarrassed and Kat's mom just
starts laughing and laughing andlaughing and Kat's father tells
her to be quiet, be quiet, shutup.
She doesn't stop laughing andso eventually he puts his hands
(23:27):
around her until she stopslaughing.
And yeah, so that is themotivation for him killing her
in the film.
But yeah, we don't get that inthe book, which I guess that's.
I did see that this wassomeone's complaint in their
review of this book.
I did see that this wassomeone's complaint in their
review of this book, which makessense because she, you know Kat
.
The book is told from a firstperson narrative, which is why I
(23:49):
think they added so muchvoiceover for the film.
So it's told from first person.
But yet Kat knows a lot of likewhat people are thinking, like.
Like she knows what they'rethinking and yet she doesn't
know what her dad's thinkingwhen it came to killing her mom.
I don't know, it's just one ofthose things that's like.
Well, it's convenient that sheknows all these other people's
thoughts, but she doesn't happento know, like this, one really
(24:12):
important thought.
But anyway, yeah, one otherchange that I did forget to
mention is just that cat in thefilm, if I'm not mistaken, is
going to school in California.
The Kat grows up.
It is from Ohio and in the bookshe is going to school in
Michigan.
It's about a four hour drivefrom where she lives in Ohio to
(24:34):
her college in Michigan.
So she gets dropped off andpicked up for vacation by her
dad and her dad's new girlfriend.
But in the film, like I said,she flies back to school after
the confrontation with her dad.
But anyway, yeah, I mean Irated the book three stars and I
rated the film three stars aswell.
I wouldn't call it a tie, thoughI am leaning more towards the
(24:59):
film because, like you said,there was just something about
the writing of the book thatwasn't connecting with me.
It felt a little bit too overlydescriptive and, yeah, it was
just like so.
It was beautifully written.
Beautifully written, I'm notgoing to.
I'm not going to deny that itwas absolutely gorgeously
(25:19):
written, the imagery andeverything that you're getting.
But I'm not sure that itnecessarily added to the story
other than just being beautifulwords on a page.
That and we're trying to figureout what it could mean.
And Kat, I think, is just Idon't know, I think she's a
little too apathetic orsomething.
She just.
Yeah, I thought the film was OKas well.
(25:41):
I think what mostly bugged meabout that film was the
narration of it.
It's so tricky becausevoiceover narration can be so
helpful in terms of thestorytelling, but it can hinder
it a little bit if you'retelling us a little bit too much
instead of showing us, and Ifeel like this fell a little bit
more into the telling and notso much showing kind of aspect.
(26:07):
I don't know.
So, yeah, it also could just belike I had been so interested
in watching this film for solong that by the time I actually
watched it it was like, I mean,I waited a really long time to
see this and it wasn't anythingnecessarily special.
But yeah, so the winner is thefilm and, like I said, it mainly
has to do with the beautifulwriting of the book that is just
(26:30):
a little bit too descriptiveand not adding anything to the
story itself, in my opinion, asopposed to the film.
But what I really liked aboutthe film at least, was the
acting.
I mean, shailene Woodley did areally, really good job in
giving us like this blasé kindof character whose walls start
(26:53):
coming down as the filmprogresses and she realizes like
no, my mom is gone and shecould be gone forever and it's
possible she's not alive andjust abandoned me, like it's
possible that something reallydid happen to her.
So I recommend it, definitelyfor the acting Ava Greene, as
the mom, was also really good.
(27:14):
And yeah, christopher Maloney,he just played like a really
good kind of like loser-ishfather figure type thing.
So that is it for this episodeof Books vs Movies and if you
like this podcast, please leaveit a rating and a review and
tell all your friends all aboutit, please, and I will see you
(27:36):
next time.
Bye.
Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set
out to answer the age-oldquestion is the book really
always better than the movie?
I'm Yuvia, an actress and booklover based out of New York City
, and today I will be talkingabout White Bird in a Blizzard
by Laura Kaczynski and it's 2014adaptation, white Bird in a
(00:21):
Blizzard, starring ShaileneWoodley, ava Green and directed
by Greg Araki.
Hello everyone.
So, yes, as you can see, Ilooked up how to pronounce this
author's last name and it wastotally not what I expected,
because it is spelled the way Itried pronouncing it last week.
It's spelled like it looks likeit should be pronounced
(00:43):
Kishishk or something like that,but it's actually Kiziski.
So there you go, all right, soWhite Bird in a Blizzard by
Laura Kiziski was firstpublished in 1999.
Now, I didn't realize this bookwas that old.
I had heard about the film.
I had actually been curiousabout it when it initially came
(01:05):
out.
I think 2014 was the year inwhich there was like a lot of
movies that were getting a lotof hype and I was determined to
see all of them, but at the timeI was still in El Paso and,
since a lot of them were indiefilms.
We don't get a lot of smallerindie films released in El Paso.
You need to be in New York orLA or some select markets, I'm
(01:28):
sure, like Austin and Dallas inTexas would probably get them,
but El Paso, no, we're not goingto get it.
So I never saw the film, but Ihad heard about it and I was
intrigued by the concept and didwant to check it out.
And so when I saw that it wason Amazon, I finally watched it.
And that's when I found outthat it was based on a book.
(01:50):
And yeah, I did not realizethis book was that old.
But moving on, white Bird in aBlizzard by Laura Koziski was
first published in 1999.
And it follows the story ofKatrina Connors.
Her mother disappears.
It's assumed that she haswalked out on the family.
She's absolutely miserable inher marriage and it's obvious
(02:12):
that being a stay-at-home mother, a homemaker, all of that was
not what she actually wanted.
So the year that Katrina turnsKatrina or Kat turns 16, her
mother disappears, kat and herfather start to gather the
pieces of their lives andKatrina doesn't seem all that
bothered by her mother's absence.
(02:33):
That is until she starts havingdreams of her mother.
That's when she realizes thatshe has to discover what these
dreams mean so that she cansleep peacefully again.
And that is when she discoverssomething unexpected.
The 2014 adaptation of WhiteBird in a Blizzard is written
and directed by Greg Araki.
(02:54):
It stars Shailene Woodley asKat, ava Green as her mother and
Christopher Maloney as herfather, and it follows the life
of a teen girl whose world isturned upside down after her
mother disappears.
So this film slash book, dotake place in the 80s.
It actually takes place in 1988.
(03:14):
Shout out to my brother andOrlando, because they're 88
babies, but yes's, that's whenit came out and I mean, it seems
like a pretty straightforwardadaptation, but it's not or it
is, I don't know.
We'll get into it.
So, yeah, I was intrigued bythis film, or the the movie
(03:38):
trailer, when this came out, butit was just never released in
my hometown, so I never saw itand I kind of forgot about it.
And then it popped up on one ofthe streaming services and I
was like, oh yeah, I did want towatch that, so I did, but let's
go ahead and get started.
So the first thing that I wantto say is that bothered me about
(03:59):
Shailene Woodley's casting isthat Kat is fat.
The character of Kat issupposed to be fat, at least
while her mom is around.
So Kat and her mother kind ofhave this contentious
relationship.
They don't really, they justfight a lot.
(04:20):
And it's obvious that Kat isn'tmeeting her mother's
expectations in a lot of waysand one of the more egregious
ones in Kat's mother's eyes isher weight.
Kat is fat and her motherbelieves in being thin and
beautiful and feminine and youcan't be that if you're fat.
(04:42):
In Kat's mom's eyes so she isfat.
Now this book and film are likeswitch back and forth between
Kat in the future and Kat in thepast, like as in Kat before her
mom disappears and Kat afterher mom disappears.
So we do kind of jump back andforth between those timelines.
(05:04):
So Kat before her motherdisappears is fat and Kat after
her mother disappears is skinny.
And I think it's just one ofthose things that like now that
her mom is off of her bag andshe can breathe a little bit and
relax, she doesn't feel thatpressure of needing to be
perfect.
I guess that's what makes iteasy for her to lose that weight
(05:26):
.
So it did take a while in thebook for us to get to this
weight loss moment and then,once she loses that weight, she
remains with that weight lossfor the rest of the book.
But so for the first half ofthe book, kat is fat, and so it
definitely bothered me thatShailene Woodley is definitely
(05:49):
not fat.
She is very thin and shedefinitely has more of the
standard Hollywood bodyexpectation.
That being said, kat does loseweight and we need to see this
transformation in on screen in,especially since it is told in a
lot of flashbacks.
This would need to be done in away that would more than likely
(06:14):
be reliant on a fat suit, whichI don't necessarily condone.
So it is a little bit trickybecause Kat's weight is a very
important aspect of therelationship she has with her
mother, so that weight isimportant.
But fat suits are veryoffensive and most of the time
(06:35):
look comical, not realistic.
So I don't know, would it havebeen better to just cast a fat
actress and just have her, haveKat, be fat throughout the whole
film?
Or is it just better to do whatthe film did and cast Shailene
Woodley and not have weight be afactor at all in the character?
(06:59):
I don't know.
It's definitely tricky.
Like I said, the films are shotout of order.
There would be no way.
I mean, I guess they could havelike paused, they could have
pulled a Mark Ruffalo in I Knowthis Much Is True in which they
shot all the scenes of him asthe more fit twin and then took
(07:19):
a six-week break before goingback and filming all the scenes
of him after having packed onsix weeks worth of weight.
So maybe they could have donesomething like that, like film
all the scenes where Kat has theweight loss and then taking a
break to give the actress anopportunity to gain weight.
I don't know, I kind of or itcould have been reversed have
(07:41):
assist a bigger actress inlosing weight.
I understand why they didn't dothat.
I think it requiring there werejust would not have been any
way to get the bigger actressdown to a more noticeable size
safely without like crashdieting or anything like that.
We all know it's a lot easier toput on the weight than take it
(08:02):
off.
So I don't know it is a trickyone, but I kind of wish.
I kind of do wish they had gonewith a different actress rather
than Shailene would, becausethe weight does play such an
important factor in the way thatKat's mom talks to her and
treats her and yeah, I think Ikind of wish they had gone.
It's so easy to just cast aconventionally attractive
(08:25):
actress and make some sort ofthe knot essentially.
But anyway, that was.
I don't really have a solutionfor that because I know it might
be difficult, but yeah, I if Ikind of wish they had gone for a
fat actress, just to have thatperspective, because it is an
important perspective.
But anyway, one of the otherchanges that I'm not exactly
(08:49):
sure why it was me, but I'm notnecessarily complaining is so
Kat has two friends.
One of them is Mickey and inthe book Mickey is a girl.
She is a cheerleader, verybeautiful, conventionally
attractive cheerleader.
In the film they made Mickey aboy.
They cast Mark Andelicato asMickey and apparently this was
(09:14):
Greg Rocky's first choice toplay Mickey.
So I guess he just reallywanted to work with Mark and
switch gender, swap the roles.
That change didn't reallybother me.
Mickey and the other friendthat I can't remember, but in
the film she's played byGabrielle Sabidi, which I love
her, but they're not importantto the story.
You easily could have cut themout of both and you would have
(09:37):
probably gotten with the sameconclusion.
So, yeah, they're not reallyimportant to the story.
So that change definitelydidn't bother me.
It was more of just like oh,mickey's supposed to be a girl,
cool, all right.
So in the film there is amoment and this is after Kat,
after Kat's mom has been gonefor about three years, I want to
(10:00):
say and Kat is home fromcollege and she and Mickey and
the other friend which is reallybugging me that I can't
remember her name.
Let me look up her name reallyquick.
So she's not just some namelessperson Beth.
Okay.
So Beth and Mickey are the twofriends.
So Beth, mickey and Kat are allhome from college.
(10:20):
I want to say it's like theholiday break or spring break or
Thanksgiving break it'sdefinitely not the summer break,
it's one of the shorter breaksand they're all in town and
they're all hanging out in Kat'sbasement.
That's like their go-to hangoutspot and they're all hanging
out and then at one pointthey're drinking champagne and
they're like, oh, this champagnekind of sucks, let me chill it
(10:43):
for a bit.
And there's a freezer in thebasement that hasn't been used
pretty much since Kat's mom diedbecause Kat's mom was the only
one that did the cooking.
So in the years since Kat's momdied, because Kat's mom was the
only one that did the cooking.
So in the years since Kat'smom's disappearance it's kind of
just become a catch-all, it'sjust become an extra counter
space.
So it's one of those like thosemeat locker kind of freezers, I
(11:05):
guess you could say, like thehorizontal ones, not the ones
that stand upright.
So, yeah, she and her friendsgo over and they start like
removing the newspapers thathave collected on top of this
freezer so they can try to chillthe champagne.
And as they're doing that,kat's father shows up and is
like you need to go home now andhe kicks Mickey and Beth out.
(11:27):
And then he gets this, causesKat and him to get into a fight
and she's like I can't believeyou did that, like that was so
embarrassing, and also they'remy friends.
And he's like well, you guysare underage drinking.
And she's like that neverbothered you before.
And so it becomes this wholething In the book.
He kind of just decides to kickthem out because the pretense
is they're underage drinking,but there isn't really anything
(11:50):
else that triggers it.
Yeah, it's kind of just likeyou need to leave now.
And that's it In the film aswell.
So in the book Kat's boyfriend,phil, so they were they're kind
of still dating by the time Katheads off to college.
But it's definitely more casual.
They were a lot more seriouswhen they were in high school
(12:12):
and then he stayed behind andshe went to college.
So it's definitely become a lotmore casual.
They were a lot more seriouswhen they were in high school
and then he stayed behind andshe went to college.
So it's definitely become a lotmore casual.
And there reaches a point inwhich they stop sleeping
together.
Like when they first starteddating they couldn't keep their
hands off each other kind ofsituation.
And then as time went on, likethey kind of just stopped.
And so at one point Kat is likeconfronts him about like at one
(12:34):
point they're just talking andKat questions him like if he had
anything to do with her mom'sdisappearance and he's like no,
but your dad definitely does.
And she's like what do you mean?
And he's like that's all I'mgonna say.
And then that's the last timethey talk to each other and and
then in the book it kind of juststays like that.
Like the words, phil's words,bother her, but she doesn't do
(12:56):
anything about it.
Well, she does and we'll getinto what she does.
But in the film there's a littlebit more after that.
So after she has thatconversation with Phil, she goes
to her, she starts having thismoment in which she's she starts
freaking out and again sheheads down to the freezer and
her dad's like what are youdoing?
And she's like I don't know, Ijust do you know what happened
(13:17):
to my mom?
And he's like no, and then shesays you would tell me.
Right, like if you, if you knewwhat happened to her, you would
tell me.
And he says yes, of course.
And so she confronts him aboutwhat Phil says in the film.
In the book she doesn't.
She takes matters into her ownhands in the book.
In the film she has thisconfrontation with her father
(13:38):
and then she sets out, she getson a plane to go back to college
and flies away without everfinding out what happened to her
mom.
And in the book she does findout what happened to her mom.
I guess let me rephrase thatshe leaves back to college
without knowing where her mom is.
In the book she discovers whereher mom is, but in the film she
ends up.
So the film is one of thoselike strongly narrated films,
(14:02):
like we get a lot of voiceoverfrom Kat explaining what
happened, what's going on, andso she ends up.
We get images of her on theflight home as she's crying, and
then we're getting into likethe official spoiler territory.
Now I think you can probablyguess what happens if you
haven't guessed it by now.
But if you haven't guessed itright now, this is we are
(14:24):
officially in spoiler territory.
So if you do not want to knowwhat happens to Kat, what
happened to Kat's mom, all ofthat, then now is the time to
turn back.
So we get images of as she'snarrating this.
We get images of Kat flying backto college and then we get
images.
We see a shot of her dadgetting arrested and she tells
(14:48):
us an image of her mom in thefreezer.
And she tells us an image ofher mom in the freezer.
And what happened was, afterthe two close calls, essentially
with the freezer, with Kat andher friends, and then Kat, right
before she confronts her father, he realizes it's like it's no
longer safe to keep the bodyhere.
So he takes the body, but atthis point the body had been in
(15:10):
the freezer for so long that bythe time he took it out to bury
it, she just melted.
Like she had been frozen for solong that she just melted.
Like there was no evidence ofhow he killed her.
I think there's like remnants.
It's not like she there's.
They find like evidence of thebody and the police arrest him
and he confesses and says thathe's the one that killed her.
But there's no like like hadthey not found whatever stuff
(15:32):
can't be melted, or I'm notexactly sure how that works, but
essentially like she had beenfrozen for so long that majority
of her melts.
And so they arrest him and heends up killing himself while in
custody.
And yeah, so cat finds out allof this after the fact in the
book.
So Phil tells her like your daddefinitely knows what happened
(15:54):
to your mom, and she's like whatdo you mean?
And he's like that's all I'mgoing to say.
And she's been having thesedreams of her mom in a blizzard
and that leads her to go to thebasement and open up the freezer
and she, she finds her, hermom's body.
And that's how the book endsLike she finds her mom.
The last sentence is like Ifound my mom.
That's a very.
Before I reveal what themotivation was.
(16:15):
Let me just talk a little bitabout different aspects of both
(16:39):
that I liked, because whathappens to the motivation is
tied to one of the things that Idid appreciate about the film.
So in the book, after she andPhil stop having sex, she falls
for this like for the detectivethat's like the lead detective
(17:01):
on the mother's on the case tofind out what happened to her
mother and she.
They start having an affair andI will say I think I
appreciated the portrayal alittle bit better in the book
because it does make you feel alot more uncomfortable.
I don't.
One of the things that really,really irks me and it's been
(17:22):
such a trope like this was likethe go-to trope of the 2010s was
like student-teacherrelationships and really, really
glorifying that and making itseem like it's okay, when
obviously no, it's not, whilethis is not a student-teacher
relationship sexual relationshipit is a sexual relationship
(17:43):
between an adult and a minor andthe adult is also a cop.
So I will say I think the filmglorified it a little bit more
than the book did.
The book like yeah, and not thatit was saying like necessarily
that it was okay or anything,but like the after she has sex
with the detective and she tellsher friends about it.
(18:04):
They start talking about likeoh, who's better in bed?
Like is it the detective or isit phil?
And yeah, and in the book likethey do have these conversations
, but it's I'm trying todescribe how like the way it's
written definitely makes youfeel a little bit more like ooh,
but he's an adult and I thinkit's especially like more gross
(18:25):
because like the detective'spillow talk is really like it's
really gross pillow talk interms of like, oh, you're into
her body because it's the bodyof a child as opposed to like
the body of a woman, that kindof pillow talk, if that makes
any sense.
Yeah, and like the filmdefinitely makes it seem more, a
lot more normalized.
(18:46):
I'm not saying it makes it seemromantic or ideal necessarily,
but it does feel a lot morenormalized than the book.
Like the book definitely mademe be a little bit more like oh,
that's gross.
Why would you say that to achild?
That kind of thing I didn'tnecessarily like that.
The film kind of normalized ita little bit more.
(19:06):
The other thing that just reallythat I really didn't like about
the, about the book, was theway it was written.
It was just very like there wasjust so much description, but
like it was overly flowery and,yeah, it just I couldn't tell
(19:28):
reading it if I was enjoyingwhat I was reading or not.
I was intrigued by the concept,but I yeah, I didn't
necessarily, I couldn't fullyget into it.
There wasn't anythingnecessarily that was drawing me
in.
The thing that I really likedthat the film did was kind of
give us that closure in terms ofwhat caused that, what
(19:49):
motivated her father to kill hermother, and the reason is that
so, like I've said many times,kat and Phil reach a point in
which they stop having sex witheach other and it's kind of
implied that there could besomething going on between Phil
and her mother.
She just gets very flirty andshe finds ways like she'll wear
(20:13):
outfits that are a little shortor things like that, and ask
Phil his opinion on them, butwe're never explicitly told why
they stop having sex with eachother.
It kind of just happens and inthe film they stop having sex
with each other and you'rereally in the film, you're
really really led to believethat that's the reason why they
stopped having sex with eachother because Chad's mom and
(20:35):
Phil started having an affair.
But plot twist in the film,like I said, the book it just
ends with her finding the bodyand we never get that closure of
.
But why?
Why did the dad kill the mom?
And, mind you, it is saidfrequently that it was obvious
that she wasn't happy she foundways to.
(20:59):
She was constantly bringing Katdown, she was constantly
insulting her husband.
Like this lady was not likablein any shape or form.
I didn't like this character atall and I kind of felt very
apathetic towards herdisappearance, which is the way
that that Kat felt, at least inthe book.
Like Kat is kind of just like,yeah, she's gone.
(21:19):
So it's kind of like like Katseems much happier and not at
all concerned about whathappened to her mother, because
now she does wonder.
But it's definitely like itseems like her life is better
now that her mother is gone forsure, which I'm just like.
I don't blame you, that lady'sawful, but I'm not necessarily
(21:40):
sure that that was the author'sintention.
Like, was I supposed to befeeling that way about?
Should I have been?
I don't know.
I felt a lot more along thelines of how Kat felt in the
book towards her mother, likeshe's fine, good, I mean she's
gone, good.
But yeah, in the film ShaileneWoodley definitely adds a layer
of like.
(22:00):
She seems kind of apathetictowards her mother's
disappearance and it's like kindof blase, like it's not a big
deal, it's fine, whatever.
Like she was, she wasn't happy,she's probably like she left on
her own it's fine.
And then the more she has thesedreams and the more as time
passes, the more it startsgetting to her that she doesn't
(22:21):
know what happened to her mother.
And so when she confronts herfather, it's a very like sad,
kind of like begging, pleading,crying, please, like you would
tell me if you know where she is, please, like you would right,
like just if you know anything,just tell me please, kind of
situation which I'm not surethat the mom is any more likable
in the film.
If I'm being honest, I can seeShailene Woodley did add that
(22:44):
kind of layer to it, which whichI really liked.
But anyway, back to themotivation.
So yeah, we never get themotivation in the book, other
than maybe he just got tired ofher constant put downs and
insults and things like that.
We don't know, we don't know.
But we do get the motivation inthe film and the motivation is
that Kat's mom comes home fromshopping one day and she enters
(23:07):
her bedroom to discover Phil andher husband in bed together.
And Phil runs out of the roomembarrassed and Kat's mom just
starts laughing and laughing andlaughing and Kat's father tells
her to be quiet, be quiet, shutup.
She doesn't stop laughing andso eventually he puts his hands
(23:27):
around her until she stopslaughing.
And yeah, so that is themotivation for him killing her
in the film.
But yeah, we don't get that inthe book, which I guess that's.
I did see that this wassomeone's complaint in their
review of this book.
I did see that this wassomeone's complaint in their
review of this book, which makessense because she, you know Kat
.
The book is told from a firstperson narrative, which is why I
(23:49):
think they added so muchvoiceover for the film.
So it's told from first person.
But yet Kat knows a lot of likewhat people are thinking, like.
Like she knows what they'rethinking and yet she doesn't
know what her dad's thinkingwhen it came to killing her mom.
I don't know, it's just one ofthose things that's like.
Well, it's convenient that sheknows all these other people's
thoughts, but she doesn't happento know, like this, one really
(24:12):
important thought.
But anyway, yeah, one otherchange that I did forget to
mention is just that cat in thefilm, if I'm not mistaken, is
going to school in California.
The Kat grows up.
It is from Ohio and in the bookshe is going to school in
Michigan.
It's about a four hour drivefrom where she lives in Ohio to
(24:34):
her college in Michigan.
So she gets dropped off andpicked up for vacation by her
dad and her dad's new girlfriend.
But in the film, like I said,she flies back to school after
the confrontation with her dad.
But anyway, yeah, I mean Irated the book three stars and I
rated the film three stars aswell.
I wouldn't call it a tie, thoughI am leaning more towards the
(24:59):
film because, like you said,there was just something about
the writing of the book thatwasn't connecting with me.
It felt a little bit too overlydescriptive and, yeah, it was
just like so.
It was beautifully written.
Beautifully written, I'm notgoing to.
I'm not going to deny that itwas absolutely gorgeously
(25:19):
written, the imagery andeverything that you're getting.
But I'm not sure that itnecessarily added to the story
other than just being beautifulwords on a page.
That and we're trying to figureout what it could mean.
And Kat, I think, is just Idon't know, I think she's a
little too apathetic orsomething.
She just.
Yeah, I thought the film was OKas well.
(25:41):
I think what mostly bugged meabout that film was the
narration of it.
It's so tricky becausevoiceover narration can be so
helpful in terms of thestorytelling, but it can hinder
it a little bit if you'retelling us a little bit too much
instead of showing us, and Ifeel like this fell a little bit
more into the telling and notso much showing kind of aspect.
(26:07):
I don't know.
So, yeah, it also could just belike I had been so interested
in watching this film for solong that by the time I actually
watched it it was like, I mean,I waited a really long time to
see this and it wasn't anythingnecessarily special.
But yeah, so the winner is thefilm and, like I said, it mainly
has to do with the beautifulwriting of the book that is just
(26:30):
a little bit too descriptiveand not adding anything to the
story itself, in my opinion, asopposed to the film.
But what I really liked aboutthe film at least, was the
acting.
I mean, shailene Woodley did areally, really good job in
giving us like this blasé kindof character whose walls start
(26:53):
coming down as the filmprogresses and she realizes like
no, my mom is gone and shecould be gone forever and it's
possible she's not alive andjust abandoned me, like it's
possible that something reallydid happen to her.
So I recommend it, definitelyfor the acting Ava Greene, as
the mom, was also really good.
(27:14):
And yeah, christopher Maloney,he just played like a really
good kind of like loser-ishfather figure type thing.
So that is it for this episodeof Books vs Movies and if you
like this podcast, please leaveit a rating and a review and
tell all your friends all aboutit, please, and I will see you
(27:36):
next time.
Bye.
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